


A Substitute Wizard

by Unreal_Kitty



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Characters Play Dungeons & Dragons, Fluff, Gen, Morally Ambiguous Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27704000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unreal_Kitty/pseuds/Unreal_Kitty
Summary: The Alphas need an extra player in their Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Harry recruits Goodman Grey, who is all too eager for the task. It doesn’t take long for the wizard to realize he’s made a terrible mistake.
Relationships: Harry Dresden & Goodman, Harry Dresden/Goodman Grey
Comments: 26
Kudos: 59
Collections: Jim Butcher





	A Substitute Wizard

**Author's Note:**

> Story set post-Battle Ground. Special thanks to my collaborator Sarah, brainstormer and editor extraordinaire.

_Introduction_

The damp Chicago street gleams with rainwater as Harry Dresden hurries through the night. 

Wind tugs at his leather duster. A mortal man would shiver. The Winter Knight does not mind the cold. Turning onto a winding side street, he scans the storefronts for the correct address. A game shop, closed for the day, an Irish pub…

“Bingo,” says Harry under his breath. 

The building is nondescript. Remarkably so. One of those modern rigs, all glass and neat, predictable lines. An accountant could work here, maybe a mid-level attorney. A placard on the door lists the current tenants. 

“Synergy Inc….Edwards and Associates...ah, here we go, Monster LLC.”

He rings the buzzer. A pause. Then the door clicks before Harry could announce his name. 

A woman smiles at him from behind a desk. Average height, with a fit build clothed in Business Casual. She is attractive, but a mortal attractive - not the uncanny glamour favored by supernatural predators. Still, her eyes betray her for a hunter. A nameplate on the desk reads _Viti_. No last name given. 

“Mr. Dresden,” she greets, her lips quirking into a small smile. “We normally require appointments. My employer is a busy man.”

“My apologies,” replies the wizard without a trace of apology in his voice. “I’ve had a last-minute setback. I wouldn’t be here if I had another option.”

Viti nods. “Right this way.”

She glides from her seat with the easy, liquid grace of a jungle cat. _Definitely a killer_ , thinks Harry. 

She leads him to the inner office and knocks on the door. “Mr. Dresden is here to see you.”

“Send him in,” answers a voice tinged with the American South. 

The man draped across the office chair appears to be in his late-thirties, with dark hair and features that could blend into a crowd in most of the Western Hemisphere and a few other regions besides. He lowers a pair of headphones, letting them rest on his neck. Eyeing Harry, he carefully closes the laptop on his desk and moves it to the other side of the room. 

“Goodman Grey,” greets Harry, shaking the man’s hand. 

“Wizard.”

“You saw the email Butters sent you?”

“I did.”

“We really need your help. We’re a man down and we need backup.”

“So I’ve gathered.”

“Think you’re up for it?”

Grey nods solemnly.

“The usual fee?” asks Harry. 

“Gotta pay the Rent.” One corner of his lips twitched into a half-smile. 

“Alright then. All the information is there, in the email. We meet at seven. Don’t worry about bringing your own stuff, you can use Billy’s —uh, Will’s.” 

Grey nods. Harry turns to leave, then pauses halfway out the door. 

“Oh, and Grey? Make sure you send your character sheet to Butters by Wednesday or he gets cranky.” 

* * *

_From the google doc of Georgia Borden._

_“Curse of the Vampyre” Campaign, Session 6 Notes:_

_Will’s been called out on a business thing so we needed a substitute wizard. Harry brought a...a friend of his, Goodman Grey. Weird name. Weird smell. Weird eyes. But Harry says he’s a friend, and we couldn’t get anyone else on such short notice. So we’ll see._

_We asked Grey to build a simple wizard character since Billy didn’t want anyone touching his precious Ozymandius. He’ll introduce it in-game._

_We last left off talking to the mayor of Blutbad and poking around for some recon. We had agreed to meet back up at the tavern._

The Mayor tells us that he hired a local wizard to help us confront the Big Bad, aka the Vampyre Lord.

_Met the new wizard at the tavern. His name is —_

* * *

“Are you KIDDING me!” yells Harry. “You can’t call him Harry Dresden!”

“No need to get excited,” drawls Grey. “I said _Henry Drosden_ , not Harry Dresden.”

“Would you like to describe what _Henry_ looks like?” prompts Butters, his eyes sparkling. 

“Certainly. He’s about ten feet tall, with dark, messy hair, pretty long. Let’s see, what else? He carries a staff. Wizard, after all. Oh, and he wears a hat.”

Harry glowers at him from across the table. “I hate hats.”

“Sure. But _Henry_ can’t get enough of them. He has a collection at home in his basement —I mean, his wizard tower.”

Marci clears her throat and adopts an accent that might, with considerable imagination, resemble an Australian's. “So Henry, would you like to help us on our quest, mate?” 

Grey’s eyes light up. He draws a deep breath, then pauses, as though in deep concentration. When he speaks, Harry’s voice emerges from his mouth.

“Sure I can, for a fee. As the mayor told you, investigating strange happenings around town is my profession.” 

The other players stare at Grey, wide-eyed. Andi takes a surreptitious sniff in Grey’s direction. 

“Normally, I charge fifty gold pieces an hour, plus expenses,” the man continues. “But for you….what can I say, I’m a sucker for a pretty face. In fact, you can keep my portion of the loot.”

Butters chokes on his beer, his shoulders bobbing up and down in silent laughter. Around the room, startle gives way to mirth as the Alphas fight helpless giggles.

* * *

_“Curse of the Vampyre” Campaign, Session 6 Notes (continued)_

_Grey’s hilarious, it’s a shame Billy wasn’t here to see it. His Harry impression is spot on. And I’m not just talking about the voice. The inflections, the facial expression, the body language. Perfect Harry Dresden. It’s a bit too perfect, if you know what I mean. Uncanny._

_Anyway, we approached the library. which contains the map we need to navigate the Vampyre’s haunted castle._

* * *

Butters riffles through his Dungeon Master’s notes. “Ok, so there’s a lot of books here, and you don’t have enough time to search through everything yourselves. What’s your approach to finding this old map?”

“I think I still have a spell slot left that could help,” offers Georgia. 

“Hang on to that,” says Harry. “We might need you to cast something in a bit. There could be boobytraps.”

“In a library?”

“A Blutbad library. A creepy old library in Doomsvile, Evilvania.” 

“How about I have a chat with that librarian over there,” suggests Grey. Without waiting for an answer, he announces, “I walk up to the guy at the desk and make an impassioned speech about helping those in need. Oh, and I make sure to throw in a few pop culture references he won’t understand.”

“Hey! I’m not like that!” Harry protests, not quite managing to keep a straight face. The room thunders with laughter. 

Grey shoots Harry an innocent expression. “Of course not. But this isn’t you, it’s Henry Dresden.”

“I thought it was supposed to be Drosdon.”

“See, you get it!”

“Ok, ok, guys,” says Butters. “Grey, um, you need to make a persuasion check. Use the twenty-sided die.”

He rolls. “It’s a nine.”

“Don’t forget to add your skill points for diplomacy.”

“Oh, I didn’t put any in that skill.” He grins slyly. “It just didn’t feel true to character.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “I’m a lot more diplomatic than you’d think, Grey. Otherwise, there’d be a pile of ashes where you’re sitting right now.”

“I have no doubt about it, wizard.”

Harry turns to Butters. “My barbarian waves his axe at the librarian.”

“Roll for intimidation.”

“Um guys?” interjects Marci. “He’s a librarian….I think you can just ask him nicely to do his job. No threats or impassioned pleas needed.”

“What’s the fun in that?” ask Grey, just as Harry complains, “That takes all the fun out of it!”

Butters looked back and forth between the two. “Glad you can agree on something. Moving on…”

* * *

_“Curse of the Vampyre” Campaign, Session 6 Notes (continued)_

_We got ahold of the map without much more drama and made a copy. Then we headed off to—_

“Wait!” says Grey. 

Butters looks confused. “Did you want to do something else before we leave the library?

“Yes. I set the building on fire.”

“OH COME ON! I don’t set every building I walk into on fire. Certainly not on purpose!” 

“Not ten minutes ago you threatened to torch me alive!”

Harry scratches his neck. “We’ll...you’re not a building.”

Grey turns to Butters. “Anyway, back to the game. Harry casts fireball.”

“Ah, I thought your character’s name was Henry!” says the wizard, triumphantly. 

“My apologies. Henry casts fireball.”

* * *

_“Curse of the Vampyre” Campaign, Session 6 Notes (continued)_

_The game went pretty smoothly. Grey seemed to pick up the mechanics pretty quickly as we went along. My character found an enchanted amulet. Harry’s barbarian got into a bar fight but came away with key information about the Vampyre’s dastardly plot._

_By the way, Will, if Harry complains later that Grey was pissing him off the whole time, don’t believe him. That guy had Harry laughing so hard, beer came out of his nose. I’m saving this information for the next time we need to cajole Harry into babysitting._

_Eventually we made it to the Vampyre’s castle and fought off a number of smaller threats. Lackeys, mostly, a few Vampyre Brides, a couple of giant wolves. We made sure not to confront the Big Bad without you, Will, don’t worry._

_We did explore the dungeons, where it turned out a bunch of townsfolk were being held. We needed to convince the jailor to let everyone go._

* * *

Butters arranges a number of figurines across the battlemap. “So what are you guys going to do? Remember, if you try to intimidate him and fail, he might start killing prisoners.”

“What if we steal the keys when he’s asleep?” 

“We can’t, Andi, he’s a vampyre, he doesn’t sleep at night,” says Marci.

“That’s so not true!”

“D&D, Harry, not a real vampire, remember?” 

“Maybe we could seduce him?,” suggests Georgia. 

“I’ve got it,” says Grey. In a solemn tone, “What if we offer him a donut?”

A pause. Four sets of eyes blink at him with confusion. Harry falls out of his chair, laughing hysterically. 

“You ok there?” says Grey. 

“A...donut….sprinkles! HA!”

Marci frowned. “I don’t know what’s going on right now.”

“Phew,” says Harry, recovering. He pulls himself back into his seat. “Wow, word really got around, didn’t it?”

“It was an epic story, after all,” says Grey. “I mean, I’ve been around a while. I’ve seen a lot of people face up against the fae courts. But never quite like that.”

Harry shrugs. “As I said, I don’t _actually_ solve all my problems with fire.”

“Only most of them.” 

Harry tilts his head, begrudgingly. “Sometimes. Every so often. On occasion.” 

* * *

“Curse of the Vampyre” Campaign, Session 6 Notes (continued)

_We ended up causing a distraction and then Andi used her druid animal-whispering skills to convince a rat to swipe the keys. We freed almost all the prisoners before the guard caught us and attacked. Grey used fireball. He’s alright. Harry got bitten but I managed to heal him. Then we used the map to find a secret exit to evacuate the townsfolk. We were nearly in the clear when the Vampyre Lord showed up. That’s where we ended the session._

* * *

“Hey,” says Butter as he packs up his materials. “You did alright out there, Grey.”

“I’m a professional. When I’m hired to do a job, I do the job.”

“Hang on, Harry hired you to play with us?” says Georgia.

“Relax, guys, it was a dollar,” interjects Harry.

“You’re a weird dude, Grey,” says Butters. 

“How’s that lightsaber holding up, Sir Knight?”

Butters laughs. “Point taken. Still, you’re a weird dude. But you’re pretty cool.”

“Maybe we could enlist your services for our campaign again, sometime,” says Harry. “Never know when we might need a substitute wizard.”

Grey looks Harry dead in the eye. “I suppose I could make a little room in my schedule,” he says in the wizard’s voice. 

“Even to spend your time with a wizard with no diplomacy skills, who might burn the building down for no reason?”

Grey shrugs. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for a pretty face.” 


End file.
